Just a reminder that tomorrow 16:00 CET is the deadline for team submissions - so 18 hours from now - please refrain from posting your team though as I will probably still have some teams to check and I want to allow these people to still make changes if there is an issue with their team. After January 6th 23:00 CET, all teams should be set in stone and you can reveal your team after that

Just entered 6 more teams: 4 submitted through CN, 1 through Velorooms and 1 via twitter we are now at 46 teams, including 2 that still have to be revised. There is little over 4 hours left till the deadline for submission, after that there are still 31 hours for people to make adjustments if necessary, so if you send in your team and get a message back that something is wrong, don't stress, you've still got plenty of time.

Just a reminder that although the deadline for submission is in 20 minutes, please refrain from posting your teams as there is a second deadline on January 6th 23:00 CET to allow me to process and double check the teams and to allow people with mistakes in their teams to correct it.(I feel like I've posted this ten times already )

So - the deadline has passed and I've processed all teams. Currently there are 49 teams and skidmark has asked if he can submit his team a little while later - most likely before the 2nd deadline - so we should get to 50 I am still waiting for 1 person to adjust their team.

LaFlorecita wrote:So - the deadline has passed and I've processed all teams. Currently there are 49 teams and skidmark has asked if he can submit his team a little while later - most likely before the 2nd deadline - so we should get to 50 I am still waiting for 1 person to adjust their team.

I submitted mine at about the same time you posted this message! Yeah I just had to focus on getting the main game stuff updated as much as possible before concentrating on submitting a team. Thanks for the patience flo.

LaFlorecita wrote:So - the deadline has passed and I've processed all teams. Currently there are 49 teams and skidmark has asked if he can submit his team a little while later - most likely before the 2nd deadline - so we should get to 50 I am still waiting for 1 person to adjust their team.

I submitted mine at about the same time you posted this message! Yeah I just had to focus on getting the main game stuff updated as much as possible before concentrating on submitting a team. Thanks for the patience flo.

This is my team, basically it's the first 15 riders I came across that fit into a 1000 point budget I'm not expecting much but then again, in my first year playing the youth game I came second and didn't put much thought into it either

Wow, I didn't expect my team to be so unique. However, apart from Gaviria I don't think I missed anyone I would include instead. How could I miss Gaviria is beyond me though. I have him in the main game, but didn't even consider him for the youth game I must have thought he was with Etixx for the whole last season or something. Usually I am at the other side of the popularity chart, so I welcome the change.

Some things that caught my attention:Postmanhat's very British teamArb/Ferminal finding Ilnur's little brotherSnccdcno picking an unknown Iranian Karaev1 selecting a rider that already scored points (that's right, we already have a leader)Guilherme Ribeiro initially sending in a 12 rider team worth under 400 points after some encouragement from my side he hesitantly picked 3 expensive riders to fill up his team

heavy on the very young zero pointers but could very well be a good team. As I noticed for the emerging riders game I missed some italian riders but I'm happy anyway. I would have sought that Bohli is more popular.

OOMEN Sam 185 (the pick I was most in doubt about, could have gone with riders like Moscon also instead, but I think Oomen should get more chances right away for himself, and the dutch talents also just tends to start out strong as pros)GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando 151 (obvious) HAIG Jack 96 (huge talent, certain at the price and also in my main team)KÄMNA Lennard 89 (huge potential and the qualities to make many points, was afraid to leave him out)MARTIN Guillaume 61 (big talent and should get a lot of chances for himself, even if the calender might not be perfect)VAN ROOY Kenneth 59 (certain, huge talent and a great chance of points with Topsport, also in my main game cq-team)MERLIER Tim 56 (good solid sprinter, could be very good, surpriced he is a unique pick)CALMEJANE Lilian 52 (a bit of a joker, strong rider and like my nearmiss-pick R. Cardis did a very strong season in the french amateur scene, could be good)HERKLOTZ Silvio 52 (certain pick at the price)CONTRERAS PINZON Rodrigo 50 (huge potential, doubtfull if it will be already this year but could be good)LAMMERTINK Steven 46 (a solid time trial, and some potential besides that, should always guarantee some points)FARAZIJN Maxime 39 (solidt talent that should do well with Topsport, also in my main cq-team)TUSVELD Martijn 34 (unique pick that I only included to fit the young continental rider "encouragement"-criteria, hopefully he can step up and dominate in the u23 races)GADAY OROZCO Lucas Manuel 28 (certain pick at the price, I expect him too do quite well)GONÇALVES Domingos Andre Maciel 0 (surpriced he is a unique pick after his twinbrothers season this year, Andre has also some of the same potential as the brother and should be expected to also step up joining him at Caja Rural)

For the expensive rider I also seriosuly considdered the two wild cards Woods and Skujins for my team. Im quite surpriced and a bit relieved no one has picked any of those.

This is me - my strategy was to put a team together quickly so I could get back to processing main game entries. That worked great two years ago, not so well last year. We will see about this year. Seriously, I took guys that were on my longlist for the main game and configured them until it made sense. If I put someone on and second guessed it, I shrugged and left him on.

I see Jorday Kerby in the list as a unique pick, he is not a first year pro (pro since 2014). Dont know who picked him though as I cannot open the spreadsheet (nothing to do with the spreadsheet everything to do with my laptop )